Wow, this has been a crazy week! I've been so incredibly busy with big life changes that I don't know how I managed to squeeze in a game jam on top of everything... but after several sleepless nights, here we are!

Rogue Automata is my submission to Shovel Jam 2025, with the theme of "Just get started!" And roguelikes are on theme, and I've been dying to make a roguelike for years now, so this was the perfect excuse to give it a shot. Thinking about twists on the theme also lead me to cellular automata, and Conway's zero-player Game of Life. And that's something else that I've always wanted to make a game about, but I could never figure out how to make it work... until you throw it into a roguelike format! 

So, I made Rogue Automata: an automated roguelike where you manipulate the cellular automata from Conway's Game of Life.

What's Next?

No matter how Rogue Automata does in the jam, I'm looking forward to keep working on this one. I didn't even get through half of the design doc I wrote up in the week of the jam! Here are some highlights of what I'm hoping to bring in soon:

• Color-blind accessability (I didn't have time to make unique art during the jam!)
• New automata, using other forms of cellular automata such as Brian's Brain
• Engineer Cells, that follow their own rules
• Stage modifiers that mix up the format with varied challenges.
• A dozen game-changing relics.